A new wave of floods is expected even before the waters of the worst flooding in a century have retreated. People are being evacuated from towns and villages expected to be affected by new floods. The cities of Shahdadkot, Jamshoro, Matiari, Thatta and Hyderabad and surrounding villages are facing the risk of renewed floods. Monsoon rains are expected to increase in density throughout the coming week.  

International aid effort is failing to reach out to all victims and the human cost of the disaster is rising. Fifty-six people, most of them children, died from water-born diseases.

The IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation has diversified aid effort to Pakistan it launched right after the disaster hit the brother nation. Aid teams of the foundation are distributing hot food to 5,000 victims every day in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab provinces. Clothes are being produced for 200 persons daily in a workshop in Haripur and distributed to needy people. Distributions of foodstuffs, blankets, and shoes continue as well.     

Helicopters to reach cut off regions

Certain flooded areas remain cut off by flood waters. The IHH will try to reach these areas by helicopters and deliver food aid to stranded Pakistanis. Preparations for an aid cargo are underway. 

Nalan Dal, IHH official in Pakistan, noted the foundation has set up a second office in the north of the country as floods are heading northward. Life has got extremely hard for flood victims and more and more people are evacuating their homes for fear of surge in floods, Dal said and added that about 100,000 Pakistanis have fled their homes in Shahdadkot.  

600,000 tons of seed wheat submerged

The flood waters did not damage only buildings, Dal said “Not only houses are affected by fast-flowing flood waters. Farmlands are drowned and livestock are killed. It is estimated that 3.5m hectare of farmland have been damaged. This means a huge impact on the croplands of Pakistan. Affected lands will not be able to yield crops in the following harvest seasons. About 600,000 tons of seed wheat stocks have been destroyed by the flood waters.”  

Schools used as camps

In Punjab, Sindh, Baluchistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Kashmir 7,820 schools were partly or entirely damaged. Another 4,935 school buildings are used as camps by flood survivors.    

20m at epidemic risk

There are serious problems with health services in the affected areas. Deaths are reported from the areas cut off by the waters. Twenty million people are at the risk of epidemics diseases and only 1.5m have undergone health screening so far. 

Pregnant women among the affected

There are about 960,000 pregnant women or women with babies in the areas affected by the flooding. Almost half of the to-be-born babies are at the risk of death.